(Business in Cameroon) - On February 10, 2021, the Cameroonian Treasury raised XAF20 billion through the issuance of a 26-week treasury bill on the public securities market of BEAC, the central bank institution of the six CEMAC states.

Apart from being oversubscribed (190%), the operation was concluded at a weighted average interest rate of 2.16%, according to the press release published on February 12, 2021, by BEAC.

In 2020, for such term securities issued by the country, the average rates were 2.4% or even 2.7%. So, at this beginning of the 2021 fiscal year, Cameroon (which is the main animator of the CEMAC money market) has gotten closer to the bar of 2% as the interest rate for its short-term loans. This act thus confirms the saying of Sylvester Moh (Director general of the treasury) who was commenting that the country is the one to get the cheapest loans in all the public securities markets in Sub-Saharan Africa. "Cameroon is currently the only sub-Saharan country which is still getting short term financing with interest rates below 3% and less than 7% for long-term financing,” he said last year.

Such decrease in the rate of interest investors are willing to accept for loans granted to Cameroon on the money market is due to the country's compliance to all of its commitments since the advent of the BEAC's public security market in 2011. It bodes well for the country, which intends to raise XAF350 billion on this market during the current fiscal year.

BRM